Application of firefly algorithm for multi-stage transmission expansion planning with adequacy-security considerations in deregulated environments

• Optimized a complete planning framework for TEP problem.
• Firefly algorithm has been applied to solve dynamic TEP problem.
• Comprehensive comparison between proposed algorithm and GA, PSO, SA and DE has been presented.
• Market ability with regard to LMP has been evaluated.
• Minimizing congestion cost has been applied to TEP problem for increasing competition.

Electric energy is the most popular form of energy because it can be transported easily at high efficiency and reasonable cost. Nowadays the real-world electric power systems are large-scale and highly complex interconnected transmission systems. The transmission expansion planning (TEP) problem is a large-scale optimization, complicated and nonlinear problem that the number of candidate solutions increases exponentially with system size. Investment cost, reliability (both adequacy and security), and congestion cost are considered in this optimization. To overcome the difficulties in solving the non-convex and mixed integer nature of this optimization problem, this paper offers a firefly algorithm (FA) to solve this problem. In this paper it is shown that FA, like other heuristic optimization algorithms, can solve the problem in a better manner compare with other methods such genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), Simulated Annealing (SA) and Differential Evolution (DE). To show the feasibility of proposed method, applied model has been considered in IEEE 24-Bus, IEEE 118-Bus and Iran 400-KV transmission grid case studies for TEP problem in both adequacy and security modes. The obtained results show the capability of the proposed method. A comprehensive analysis of the GA, PSO, SA and DE with proposed method is also presented.

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